Section 10: Your Resume
In this section you’ll learn about the 2 different versions of your resume.
You can start building one version today, even if you’re not ready to apply to jobs!
The two versions of your resume are a master resume and a targeted resume. You can start on your master resume, even if you’re not planning to immediately apply to jobs.
Master Resume
Your master resume is not shared with employers. It’s for your use only.
This is a “catch all” version that includes all possible bullet points for your current and previous roles.
If you’re considering multiple industries / career paths, you can include different summaries for each pathway.
Don’t worry about the length of your master resume
Targeted Resume
This is the version shared with employers when you apply.
It’s fully customized to the qualifications, experience, and skills of the job you’re applying to.
Each targeted resume starts as a copy of your master resume, which is then reduced down to the most relevant content.
Your targeted resume should ideally be 1-2 pages in length.
One mistake many transitioning members make, especially early on, is using the exact same resume to apply to different jobs. That resume may be a great fit for one role, it’s impossible to perfectly match all roles.
Each job will have different qualifications listed in the job description. That means each employer will be looking for different types of experience, skills, and accomplishments on your resume.
Applying with the exact same resume for every job will speed up the application process, but it’s not setting you up for success. It’s a game of quality over quantity.
Let’s put your recruiter hat back on. Say you’re comparing resumes between two candidates. One is fully customized and makes the candidate seem like a great fit. The other is generalized and only matches in a few areas. Who do you think will be getting a call to interview?
Creating a master resume requires extra effort at first, but pays off exponentially long-term in both effort and time saved.
As you build your master resume, think about all of your accomplishments for each position. Transform these into bullet points, using the bullet point format from the last section (Skill: Accomplishment + Measure of the accomplishment + Action taken) as an outline.
Writing bullet points takes time, so set aside a few hours for this task. You might even want to spend a weekend focusing on nothing but your bullet points. It’s time intensive up front, but it will pay off multiple times over in the long-run.
You can also use AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to help rewrite your bullet points. Use these to supplement your writing instead of blindly copying and pasting the output. In the future, we’ll start to see more companies utilizing tools that can pinpoint AI-generated content.
Resource Spotlight
Resume4Vets - Assists veterans in the civilian sector by providing free resume reviews, recommendations, and guidance as a component of their complete professional profile.
Once you're ready to apply to a job, make a copy of your master resume. This copy becomes your targeted resume you’ll use to apply. Narrow down and edit content until you have a fully customized resume 1-2 pages in length.
When customizing your resume, include specific skills and experience that show you a as great candidate. Ideally, this will closely match to what is included in the job description.
The goal of your fine-tuned, targeted resume is for the recruiter to read it and immediately view you as a top candidate. The way to do this is by matching (as closely as possible) the qualifications, experience, and skills they are looking for. Connect the dots for them!
To further shorten the time spent customized resumes, create a folder for resumes from previous job submissions. Over time, you'll build a collection of resumes that can be repurposed for similar roles. If two roles are very similar, it may only require a few minutes of editing before your resume is ready to send.